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Do you use words in everyday communication that make you smaller? In this episode of The Art of Living Big, Betsy shines a light on the little things we were taught as children that we may not even catch ourselves doing as adults. Betsy invites us to catch this reflex, claim our accurate self worth, stop using apologetic language, and maybe we can collectively eliminate shrinking once and for all. PS, who wants to join us in Belize?
Transcript:
Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy Pake, your host, master, coach, and creator of the Navigate Method. Here to help you listen in to your true desires, elevate your standards, and live life to the fullest. Now, let’s go live big. Hi everyone. Welcome to the show today. So, alright, before we get started, I wanna tell you about this show that I have been watching. I have a hard time, and maybe you’re like this too, but I have a hard time finding a, show to like chill out and watch that isn’t. , I’m gonna say like scary. I don’t want true crime. Like I’m pretty careful about what I put in my brain, you know what I mean? And so it’s hard for me to find something that I actually really enjoy that feels light enough that I’m not stressed out before I go to bed. And , I talked a couple weeks ago about how I got that bed jet. I swear this isn’t. It. I’m not sponsored. I want to be, but I’m not. But I got this bed jet and you turn it on. It’s like this. It blows hot air, basically. Hot or cool air. But my favorite thing in the world is to take a shower at night, get all the pollen off me from the day, turn on turbo mode so that when I get in bed, it’s like cozy and warm and then put on a show and watch a show for 30 minutes or something, and then go to bed. This has become like my, I, it bring, this brings me so much joy. Okay. But what do you watch? Because I don’t wanna be stressed out. I’m not really into reality shows. Like it’s just, I, , maybe I’m super picky, but, I found a show and I started watching it, and it was just so quirky and weird and fun. And then it never ended. I was like, why is this, how am I still watching this show after days and days and days? And I realized there were two seasons. And so it’s a great show to watch ’cause there’s like eight episodes but two seasons and it’s just gets kookier and crazier. So the show is called Palm Royale and it’s on. Apple tv. It’s totally worth getting Apple TV for it. I think , if you’re like me, did you ever see that show the residents on Netflix? It is a Shondaland mystery about a murder at the White House, and it’s quirky and weird like a clue. Remember that board game Clue. , Anyway, this reminds me of it, Palm Royale, but it’s set in Palm Beach, so it’s in the sixties and it’s just quirky and weird and really fun. So anyway, that’s my hot tip for a show if you like to watch something light and not get stressed out before bed. So I’ve got some fun things that are coming up and one of them. Is that we are going to Belize. I know. It’s so fun. I’m so excited. So I don’t have the exact dates, but by the time this airs, it should be live on my website. If you go to betsypake.com and you’ll see live events in the menu and it’ll be there. But we found this place that you’ll fly into the main Belize airport. And then we’ll pick you up and put you on a little plane and shuttle you to like a little island, and we’re gonna spend time together, chilling out and recreating your life. , I’m so excited about the little workshops that have got planned for us. So be on the lookout for that. We’re gonna do it in. July. I think it’s gonna be around the 24th. I don’t have the exact, like I said, I, met with them on our final appointment yesterday to finalize everything. They were gonna confirm everything. The people that I hired to do this, and it will be live hopefully by the time you’re listening to this. So I’m like so, so excited to get to see people and hang out and spend time together at the beach. And just like that place I heard is like amazing snorkeling. It’s like going into an aquarium. Anyway, it’s gonna be amazing. I haven’t had a beach trip yet this year, and , I need to have a beach trip before it hits like hurricane season. And so anyway, I’m super excited and I hope, that you can join me, which brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about today. We’re gonna talk about something that I think that every single one of us that’s listening has probably done. Maybe you’ve already done it today, multiple times. And I wanna talk about all the ways that we make ourselves smaller, and I don’t mean physically, although we have been told to do that too. But I mean, in the way that we shrink our opinions, dismiss ourselves the way that we use words to make ourselves appear more submissive or. Smaller, you know, your, your needs are not as important and you’re just asking, you’re just suggesting you can dismiss my thought if you want, and maybe this is something that you’ve got good at and you’re not doing anymore, but I noticed that I did this yesterday and when I did it, I was like, oh my gosh, I’m doing this thing. So here’s what happened. I’ve been working on this retreat with this really lovely company that’s helping me plan it, and I’ve been working with this woman and she set up like a preliminary page for our retreat, and they asked me, like for my bio, and I sent over the bios that I have and pictures of me, stuff like that. So she puts all the information on there. And when I’m looking at it under my name, it says Coach. It says coach, speaker, and writer. And that is what’s in my bio. It’s like a media bio that we sent her. But it said, coach and I looked at it for a long time and look, , I am a coach. But it didn’t feel right. To me, you know, I’ve been coaching since 2012. I’m a certified master coach. I’m, trained up to the level of trainer. I can train coaches and therapists to do what I do. I have multiple certifications and I’ve gone in deep with those. I’m highly, trained and I have spent over a decade doing this work. I have built a program, I have had a podcast for nine years. I wrote a book. I have another book that’s. In process right now, I have helped thousands of women go through some of the hardest decisions of their lives, and when I looked at it, it said coach. And so when I went to write her an email. And I thought, I’m just gonna ask her to update that. , It should at minimum, say, master coach and I don’t need to have all my credentials and the letters after my name and all that stuff, but , I needed to have it, not just say, coach, that wasn’t accurate. And I started the email and I wrote, I know this is gonna sound silly, but. And as soon as I got that out, I was like, oh my God. I, was at a coffee shop and I like sat back at the coffee shop, looked around the room, like I looked around the room actually at women and men that were there, and I thought, would the men do that? , And this has nothing to do with. Our chromosomes. I’m not, it doesn’t have anything to do with our gender. It has to do with our socialization. Right? Would men do that? Why is this silly? Like, why did I wanna say, I know this sounds silly. Why am I pre apologizing for asking to be accurately represented? Why am I padding a, completely reasonable and totally professional, not even remotely complicated request with language that immediately tells the other person that I don’t fully believe that I deserve what I’m asking for. And so I deleted the email, deleted the opener, changed it, sent the email, and just said, Hey, I see that I’m. Posted and listed as Coach. Would you mind changing that to Master Coach? Done. But I kept thinking about that moment because of the, I know it sounds silly. I know it sounds silly. That wasn’t for her. She didn’t need it. She probably didn’t even notice. She didn’t care. Like she doesn’t, okay. Master coach, whatever that language was for me, it was a reflex a, habit, right? That is. I think so deeply grooved in the way that it ran before I even noticed it, like before I even consciously noticed it. I typed it out. That language was for me. And so that’s really what I wanna talk about today. So here’s what I want to make, , I wanna make clear, here’s what I would like you to understand in this. Making yourself smaller isn’t humility. It’s not being humble. It’s just a habit, and it’s a habit that most of us have been practicing since we were really little. It’s a habit that kept us safe, that we were taught like explicitly and implicitly that confidence is arrogance. Boys aren’t taught that. We were taught that taking up space is really selfish and that being proud of yourself or being proud of what you’ve built or who you are means that you think you are better than someone else. And so we learned to pre-frame everything, , almost like to pre apologize, to downplay every accomplishment that we have. So we say things like, I don’t know if this is right, but, and this is probably a dumb question, I’m just wondering. I’m just a mom. I’m just a coach. I’m just a woman trying to figure it out. Just I’m just, ugh. And I feel like that word is doing so much damage. We use it to. , I wanna say like even cut ourselves down before somebody else gets the chance to, in my comments a couple days ago, I have been doing these posts once a week for the past three weeks, and it is a carousel post on Instagram where I share something about how I’m rebuilding my life in my fifties. So the first one was sort of like an overview of how I got here. The second one was about how I am choosing to rent instead of buy, and the reasons why and why I think that can be a really good choice for people. And the third one was about doing things on my own, like doing things with friends and doing things on my own, traveling even. And a woman wrote, this is just life. You’re not so special. It, actually, I mean. Comments on the internet don’t bother me at all since I was hypnotized two years ago, to not have them bother me, but that’s another story. But I just thought it made me so sad for her because this isn’t just like a personal habit, it’s social, it’s cultural, it, and women do it to each other. She felt like she needed to police me probably because she didn’t feel comfortable with it. It made her uncomfortable to see me sharing so openly to not try and dim my own light or to say, I know this is probably isn’t a big deal. I know probably everybody has this experience, but everybody has a different experience. Everybody is special., I’m not saying I’m more special than anybody else, but of course I’m special. You are special. That lady is special. She had no profile photo and her whole profile was private. I don’t know why. , I’m sure she was thinking like, this chick just rubs me the wrong way. And I’ve had that happen where I’m scrolling and I’m like, why does this woman bug me? Like why does this irritate me? And I start to ask myself Now, is it because she’s confident? Is it because she’s showing up? In a way that makes me uncomfortable because I don’t feel like I can do that either. And you know when we hear that, , I don’t know why she just rubs me the wrong way. When I ask myself or I ask somebody else, what is it they really mean , I really want to ask that lady. What do you mean? What do you mean? This is just real life. You’re not so special. What do you mean she is? Uncomfortable with me being comfortable with who I am and when I see someone that is showing up fully as themselves and I notice she’s totally comfortable with who she is, she’s not apologizing for it. She takes up space and she doesn’t look around and make sure that everybody is okay with it. , She’s not checking to make sure men are okay with it. And that can be really unsettling to people who were never given permission to do the same thing. We were all kind of handed this book of rules, right? Don’t be too much. Don’t think too highly of yourself. Be humble. I remember years ago on the internet and Facebook, I wrote, , I posted a Kanye West Post. And, , like a Kanye West quote, and I don’t even remember specific, I could probably Google it, but the quote was like, everybody tells you to be humble. Be humble, but also be great, be amazing, be spectacular, whatever it was. But the quote was, everyone tells you to be humble. Be humble. And be great. Be people. People I know. I mean friends, I’m using air quotes like friends. People I knew from high school that I haven’t seen in, , 30 years were so bothered by that. Some people wrote me long messages about their grandfather taught them about being humble and it was like the weirdest thing. It really bothered people when I first started my business like 2012. And I would post on the internet showing up fully as me. , It, it pushed a button, ? And when someone breaks that rule, when someone just is without shrinking. There’s a part of us that can get activated. It happens to me too, not because that person did something wrong, but because they are doing something that we haven’t let ourselves do yet. And that is all about you. It’s all about me. When I see that, I’m like, oh, that’s a me thing. And these people posting and commenting in my comments. It was a you. Them. It was a them thing. It was a them thing. And so when I think about this woman who said, you’re not special, I knew that, , my content isn’t claiming to be special. All, all it’s doing is saying , I figured something out my way and I wanna share it. Maybe it will help you. That’s it, that, that’s the whole thing. And the response is, who do you think you are? And. Who do you think you are to share this? Who do you think you are to have an opinion? Who do you think you are to take up space? On my feed, in my day in my life, and what I have learned is that the people who throw these comments are not mad at what I said. They are mad that I said it out loud. They are mad that I didn’t stay small. They’re mad that I took up space that they never felt like they were given permission to take, and that’s their own work to do. So what I wanna talk about now is really about claiming your own space and what that really looks like, because I think we’ve really confused. These two things that aren’t the same, like arrogance is believing you’re better than other people. , I have no qualms about knowing I’m not better than anybody. Accuracy is knowing who you are and being willing to say it. I’m a master coach, not just a coach. I’m willing to take up that space. I’m willing to go against the pre-programming that tried to make me minimize myself. And so when I ask to be listed that way, I’m not saying I’m better than anyone. I’m saying I have earned this credential and I would like it to be represented correctly. It’s not ego, it’s accurate. , When I share content about rebuilding your life in your fifties, I’m not saying my life was harder than yours. I’m saying I walked through something and I have something to say about it. It’s not arrogance, it’s sharing it’s contribution. When we have been taught that any form of self, when we have been taught that any form of self acknowledgement. Is vanity, then you can’t do anything because any form of visibility is showing off. Any form of confidence is something that we actually have to circle back and justify or soften or, you know, say just you can know your worth and you can still be kind. You can take up space and you can still be really generous. Those two things aren’t opposing. I always say to the Navigate, ladies, like two things can be true at once. You can be proud of yourself and proud of what you’ve built and still be humble about how much you have to learn. Those things are not opposing. Posing. This idea of humility that we were handed isn’t actually humility. It’s more like erasing part of ourselves. I have been reading this book, and I think I talked about it before a few weeks ago. It’s called On our Best Behavior, the seven deadly sins , and the price women pay to be good. That’s what it is. . That’s one of the sins, right? Don’t show up. Don’t be proud. Don’t be, don’t be too much. And I think about all the ways that women were taught these pride. Greed, lust, envy. Gluttony. What else? Wrath and sloth. Sloth is one I see. Show up all the time where people are like, I can’t rest, but, pride. You’re allowed to feel proud of yourself. You, likely have done amazing things at work. You’ve raised amazing kids. Perhaps you’ve built great friendships. You have a great sense of humor. You have a sense of style. You’re funny, you’re there. You have so many things. You have so many things. When you dumb all those things down and you make them seem unimportant, and then you’re like, I don’t know who I am anymore. Well, yeah, no, no shit. No shit. ’cause the whole world told you to shut up. It doesn’t just feel uncomfortable like socially to claim your space. , For a lot of us, it can feel really dangerous. Right. If you grew up in an environment where too much got, being too much, got you punished, whether it was like just a parent being critical or a teacher being critical. I mean,, my, teachers always said I was chatty, but luckily my mom thought that was a fine thing to be, so it didn’t end up bothering me. But I know there are people that were told the same thing, that it really impacted the rest of their lives. You may have been told a lot of things from church, anything where you learned that visibility had a cost, it may be relationship. Gosh, I know I learned so many things about how much I was allowed to be in relationship, and then your nervous system starts to calibrate to that, right? It files it away as a threat. And , one of the things I see all the time in the Navigate method is women that come in and they say, my partner , , would ignore me or , push away whatever it was I was, that was important to me, or dismiss my thoughts. Or I could even say things and they would be right there and they wouldn’t even recognize me. So your nervous system starts to learn that I have to be small ’cause that will keep me safe. Because being dismissed is not a good feeling. Like your body goes though, this isn’t supposed to be happening. Why is this happening? I must be doing something wrong. What could I do different? Right? So we learn in all these different ways to be small. And so your brain trying to protect yourself gives you this language. , I know it sounds silly, but. Could you change that to master coach? I’m probably wrong. This probably isn’t a big deal. I don’t wanna ask too much. I don’t wanna be a pain. But would you mind changing that? Like that language? Is your nervous system actually doing what it needs to do? It thinks it’s keeping you safe, right? It’s trying to help you avoid punishment. That visibility once cost you, and I see it. I’m gonna say cost me, but it doesn’t really cost me ’cause I don’t care. But this person saying, you’re not special. This morning I got, , a note on the internet, , that said, you’re the worst woman in the world. I was like, wow, I wanna be good at something. So I just blocked delete and block. But that, that’s the kind of thing that can trigger a shame reflex. So. Your work here is just to notice it, to catch it right. To hit backspace and say, I’m not gonna do that. I see that you’re trying to minimize yourself. I know why you’re doing that, and we’re gonna do something different today. And I think that when you can start doing that, catching yourself first, then starting to make shifts. Believing that you’re worthy of being seen, of being visible, of taking up space, of having an opinion. I think when you can do that, that is how you live a big life. So thank you so much for joining me today. . I’m hoping I’ll get to see you and give you a hug in Belize. Nothing could make me happier. I was on the internet and got fully influenced to buy a bathing suit the other day. This woman was so cute and she had on this little one piece red bathing suit, and it was so cute, and I was like, oh my God, I need that. So I bought it and she was tall and blonde and skinny, and I got the bathing suit and I was like, mm, why doesn’t it look like it does on the internet? But it’s so cute and I’m gonna bring it to Belize. We can snorkel and do some work together and have a cocktail. All right. It was so good to be here with you today. I love you so much. I’ll see you next week. Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today. You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake and on my YouTube channel. Remember, the world is vast. Your potential is endless, and your life, it’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.
